Astr110 Photography Projects, Spring 2006

M95, Carrie Groen

M95 galaxy was discovered by Pierre Mechain on March 20, 1781 along with M96 galaxy. M95 is a barred spiral galaxy with nearly circular arms according to Vaucouleur's classification. Alan Sandage in the Hubble Atlas of Galaxies calls it a "typical ringed galaxy." The distance of the M95 galaxy is 38,000 kilo light years from earth. It is located in Leo I or M96 group along with M96, M105, and numerous other fainter galaxy. M95 galaxy was one of the key galaxies in the Hubble Space Telescope project in 1996.

When Pierre Mechain discovered M95 in 1781 he described it as " [A] Nebula without star, in the Lion [Leo], above star l (53 Leonis): its light is very faint." Then John Herschel in 1833 described the galaxy as "Bright; large; round; pretty gradually much brighter toward the middle where there is a nucleus." The size of the galaxy is 55860 light years.

References:
http://www.seds.org/messier/m/m095.html

http://www.ing.iac.es/PR/science/m95_high.html